“I’m surprised,” Nau said. “We know we had a strong, compelling bid. A number of voters told Bob that we had the best presentation. We’re disappointed for the city. A lot of hard work went into this process. We’re going to look at Super Bowls in the future.”

The city could get into the bidding for Super Bowl XLVII (in 2013), but Arizona and New Orleans already are the favorites for that one.

The next four Super Bowls will be in Tampa, Miami, Dallas and Indianapolis. Should New Orleans or Arizona get the one in 2013, the other city would almost be a lock for the following year. Then, it’ll be about time to head back to South Beach.

Houston 2016?

Surely the Texans will have played in a Super Bowl by then, right?

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Would you rather be the Bulls – No. 1 overall pick, Eatern Conference, young team that has a nucleus that won a playoff series a year ago and under the salary cap?

Or the Rockets – 25th pick, one aging, often ailing superstar, another often injured superstar coming off foot surgery, over the salary cap and in the Western Conference, where they haven’t even finished higher than third in their division since 1997?

• • •

The Spurs haven’t had a lottery pick since they took Tim Duncan in 1997.

Now that’s a model franchise.

But they haven’t established a dynasty in that time. Winning four championships in nine years is very impressive, but two things: you have to win back-to-back titles at least once to have a legitimate title, and can you really have a dynasty during a time in which another team claimed a threepeat?

The Lakers and San Antonio meet in the playoffs for the sixth time in 10 years, starting tonight.

27 Responses

Frankly, it is a toss up on the Bulls or Rockets. If you aren’t going to make a run, it might as well be all losses. This season was special in its own way with the streak, but it ended with the same result as the previous 11. No title and no playoff run.

The only benefit to being the Bulls is getting a higher pick to spark the rebuild process or help move it along much faster. Now, we have a decent core, but the clock is ticking double-time. Morey put together some great personnel moves last year, but the West is very tough, and none of the teams around the Rockets appear to be losing steam or players. Heck, most of them are only going to get better because they have young pieces. San Antonio is the old man on the block, but I will never count them out.

Grabbing Landry was a great pick last year, and Morey might even need a better one this year if the team is going to progress. My thought would be to get a 2 or 3 that can provide some scoring, but at that spot, it will be for a role player off the bench. Maybe Bill Walker from K State or CDR from Memphis would be available that late.

King: You can take this to the bank: The Texans will win FIVE Super Bowls before Houston hosts another one. At least if Bob McNair continues to be the owner. McNair made a lot of the middle- and small-market owners angry when he voted against a more comprehensive revenue-sharing proposal that would have spread the wealth more evenly among big-market and smaller-market teams. Those owners won’t soon forget that, and if you think that they are going to direct any incremental revenue to McNair by awarding Houston the Super Bowl, you’re nuts.

The Texans are leveraging themselves to be in position to get to a Superbowl. Every single year there are 3 to 5 teams that are legitimate Superbowl contenders that don’t make it. Even the best dyansties are littered with failures, the cowboys, Steelers, 49ers and Patriots have all been knocked out of the playoffs during their dynasty runs. The best you can ask for is to consistently make the playoffs and put yourself in position to get to the championship year after year.

Will the Texans be in the Superbowl before 2016? I think they will……..

Heat (even in January), mosquitos (all year long), traffic (for the millinium), humidity (always) and tons and tons of air pollution do not add up to a city many people want to visit unless it’s a business trip. It has great scenary, if you like billboards, great vistas, from the top of an off ramp, and lots of great clubs, if you like strippers. Houston is a place to make money until you can retire and get out of here.

I think that your supposition regarding the Spurs is wrong. First, I don’t think that you MUST win back-to-back to claim to have a dynasty. It sure helps, but it is not a requirement. Second, I really am not sure anybody counts the 1999 season title when they talk about the Spurs. The current core group of guys have won 3 titles together. Their second title came 4 season after their first. I think that only Duncan was around for the 1999 title. Lastly, they have won 3 titles in the past five years (ignoring this season), and may well win one again this year. The Patriots have won 3 in the past 7 years, yet everybody was quick to call them a dynasty when they got to the SuperBowl again this year. Sure the Patriots have a back-to-back in there, but in the past 5 years, the Spurs are beating the Pats in titles 3 to 2.

No, I’m not a Spurs fan or anything. I just call it like I see it, and what I see is a dynasty. Plus, I’ll bet that they dispatch the Lakers to get to the Finals. Not sure that they win it all though.

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Oh, Greg, you must win back-to-back, or at the very least make it to consecutive finals to be considered a dynasty. Otherwise, the Spurs would be the lone dynasty to not fit that criteria. I don’t think they have been dominant enough to earn that distinction. The celtics of the 1980s almost fal short because they never wn back-to-back, but they won three titles in six years and played in four straight finals. I think the Spurs have some work to do to claim a dynasty.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but you’re wrong about the Spurs (did someone spike my drink at lunch?). You can’t compare dynasties from the 80s to today’s NBA. What the Spurs have been able to accomplish over the last 11 years is commendable. You said it best: 1 lottery pick in this span, 4 championships, a couple more finals appearances. With the salary cap issues and with the multitude of bad draft day decisions that other teams seem to make, the Spurs have been able to stay consistently at the top of the league for more than a decade. If the Rockets were match their staying power, I would be offended by anyone who would dare say they are not a dynasty for these kind of accomplishments.

As for would I rather be the Rockets or the Bulls, I think it doesn’t matter. Neither team seems to be close to being a true contender for a ring. And both seem to be snake bitten with their recent draft history since taking Akeem and MJ. Maybe that contract with the devil seemed like a good deal at the time….

And a Texan superbowl will come first. Where is that devil when you’re ready to ink a deal?

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One correction for you: the Spurs o not have a couple of other finals appearances. What they have done is commendable, and they are the best run franchise in the sport. Just not a dynasty.

Consider this: By 2016, every player currently with the Texans (except Amobi Okoye), including rookies, will be over 30 years old. Heck, Andre Johnson will be at least 35, so probably retired. In the meantime, AY will be in his early 30′s, still going strong on his march to multiple SB wins and the HOF. All very depressing.

That’s why you’re the king. I was going off memory (could’ve swore the Pistons beat the Spurs for their ring). Once again my memory has failed me. Those 6 strong years of college are coming back to haunt me.

So Jerome, the Rockets then are (were?) more of a “dynasty” than the Spurs?

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Two titles in a row (Rockets) is a good run. Three titles in three years and four trips to the finals in five years (Lakers) is a dynasty. Six titles in eight years (Bulls) is a dynasty. Four titles in 11 years (Spurs) is very impressive.

It’s sure nice to share the place with someone like you for a fellow Houstonian, who must really be into Houston sports teams, which is what this blog is about. I moved here for the nice weather. Maybe you could make even more money in Baghdad or Moscow.

Whats with all the jerks bashing H-town. If you haven’t been able to figure out the great stuff Houston offers, then you must be one of the weakest people ever to hang out with on a weekend. Preteens around the world share your pessimism about their hometowns. Buck up & do something beside crying “its too hot!” or “the mean bugs hurt me.” Please!

If I had a choice of vacation spots Houston wouldn’t be high on my list either. I like this city, there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s as good or better than Detroit, Indy, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh and many other NFL cities, but Miami and San Diego are much nicer. New Orleans is a great place, but the stadium is a dump.

If you’re in the hotel or restaurant biz, I can understand the desire to bring it back. But for someone like myself just living near downtown, It was a real pain in the rear. I’m not going to be sad if we don’t get it again.

“you have to win back-to-back titles at least once to have a legitimate title”

Come on King…who makes up these rules anyway? You need to be more scientific about it.

I think it’d be more correct to say you need to be more “marketable” to be considered a dynasty. Get Tim to get inked up like Rodman, Manu to get a mohawk, Popovich to grow a handlebar stache, and the rest of the team to die their hair white in a show of unity.

Their new locker-room mascot can be a Burmese Python that scares the you-know-what out of all the media.

If that doesn’t get ESPN to start calling them a dynasty then nothing will.

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Marketability has nothing to do with whether I consider a franchise a dynasty. You just can’t be deemed the supreme ruler of a period if you never rule two years in a row.

if you are refering to a rebuilding team that isnt going to make the playoffs and has a team that doesnt fit together at all…. why the hell would you want to be the bulls and lose… give me a playoff team every year i dont care if they get knocked out… i would rather be int he playoffs then not… also what does that say that the bulls are in the crappy east and still cant get in the top 8…

“Their new locker-room mascot can be a Burmese Python that scares the you-know-what out of all the media.

If that doesn’t get ESPN to start calling them a dynasty then nothing will.”

Huh?

In other news:

There is probably no city in the country that better rubs salt into the wounds accumulated over the last decade of being a Rockets fan than Austin. Nobody here cares or talks about the Rockets. It’s Spurs, Spurs, Spurs. I remember after our second championship thinking how great it was to be the all-time greatest NBA franchise in Texas history. This was, of course, when the Dream was not yet over and tanking games to get the Big Fundamental was just a glimmer in Pop-a-zit’s eye. In my lifetime up until that point, the only Spurs contribution to history was the fact that coach Bob Hill is to this day the only coach I have ever seen do a post-game interview shirtless. Weak. I envisioned a future in which the Rockets extended their dominance over our interstate rivals, but how quickly the sobering sensation of reality hit me square in the nose with the bony authority of one of Deke’s elbows. Our greatest player got old. We traded away two of our championship heroes. (But hey, like everybody always says, “We finally beat Seattle.” Nobody ever mentions that we lost to Utah, whom we had thrashed in the previous two playoffs). And finally and most curiously, just as we finally had the potential to build an NBA tradition that would allow us to enter a pantheon of greatness occupied by only the truly top-tier organizations, we traded in our classic unis for pajamas and everything fell apart at the seams. Where once we stood as the pride of the city, CD went on a ten-year signing super srcubs to lengthy contracts binge. 7 years to Brent Price. 7 years to Matt Maloney. Moochie Norris parlayed an afro into a 35 million dollar albatross of a contract. The list goes on and on. Meanwhile, the hated Spurs quickly became the class of the league. While we were trying to figure out what to do with Mo Taylor, Kelvin Cato and some guy named “Two Sandwiches”, the Spurs were winning their second ring, and somehow entering into the next season 15 mil under the cap.

And that was just the beginning. So I often blast Austin for being all up on the Spurs, but the sad truth is can I really blame them? How did this happen to me? To us?

But to answer your question:

Forget the Bulls. I have great faith in Morey and Adelman. There is a ton of work to be done and there are no easy answers or quick fixes for us, but at least we have qualified, talented personnel on the job for the first time in years.

Maybe in another 10 years, long after TDunc has retired,the Spurs will be the forgotten franchise and the hard to look at, toothless guy who works the register at the Subway closest to me will be babbling about us instead of them. If he can stay out of prison, I am pretty sure he will still have the same job anyways.